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macabr3-barbi3 · 1 month ago

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God, That's Good

Chapter 11: Pretty Women

There's a hole in the world Like a great black pit And it's filled with people Who are filled with shit And the vermin of the world Inhabit it—

Tags: the usual. Murderous thoughts and intents

I am once again late with this but we're almost at the end of Act 1! I'm sorry this is taking so much longer to get out than I initially expected, October really threw me for a loop 😅

thank you as always to @fraugwinska and @minkdelovely for their continued support of this fic despite the delays!

Act 1: Chapter 1 🥧 Chapter 2 🥧 Chapter 3 🥧 Chapter 4 🥧Chapter 5 🥧 Chapter 6 🥧Chapter 7 🥧 Chapter 8 🥧 Chapter 9 🥧 Chapter 10 🥧 Chapter 11

Upon following Alastor out of the apartment and back to the barbershop, the work they had done was swift- Alastor had sent Lucifer down to his home to grab a basket and fresh clothing for them both, and by the time the barber had come back, Pentious’ body was safely stowed away where it would wait until the dead of night, when they could sneak it out of the building to a cemetery or the bayou. When Lucifer stepped through the door of his shop, he had been amazed at the speed with which Alastor had managed to clean up the blood that had soaked the floor- something he explained away as having practice from working at the butcher’s.

The most pressing mess having been cleaned up, they stepped back into the old apartment to change out of their soiled clothing, Alastor promising to get them washed as soon as he could. Lucifer had been a little distracted by the unveiling of all of Alastor’s skin as he had changed, reminding himself that he was far too old to let a little skin rile him up so much again as Alastor tugged on a fresh shirt and slacks.

Standing together in the barbershop, Alastor pulls Lucifer closer by his bowtie and straightens it out, a hum under his breath the only sound aside from their breathing. “You’re not afraid of me at all, huh?” Lucifer asks, and Alastor’s eyes tick up with a smile.

“I pose no threat to you,” he says softly. “I understand why you did what you did, dear, and I have no intentions of wronging you in any such way that you would turn your malice my way.” He looks over to the trunk he had managed to shove Pentious into meaningfully. “He was a liability to your plan- to your livelihood- and you were right to dispose of him.”

Lucifer’s insides squirm uncomfortably at the memory- the violent way that Pentious had fought against him, the scrapes and cuts he still bore on his arms from the struggle before he had put a permanent end to it. It still felt wrong, if justified, to know that he had taken a man’s life; that he planned to do it at least twice more. But to know that he had Alastor’s unconditional support was a balm on the blow to his soul, a bit of comfort in the hardship of the day.

It was then that he remembered Vaggie would possibly be bringing Charlie soon- if not today- and his spirits soared again. “You’re right. And with Vaggie bringing Charlie- the timing was wrong. He needed to be taken care of.”

“Precisely.” Alastor brushes a finger down Lucifer’s face with a smile before stepping away to throw a couple clean towels on top of the blood-soaked linens in the basket, picking it up to rest on his hip. “Come now- we should get these downstairs before your sailor friend arrives.” Lucifer nods, turning towards the door of the shop when he notices movement on the street below.

Adam.

His face was littered with unkempt stubble, his clothing wrinkled and stained. He still walked with the confidence of more put-together man, something that Lucifer had always envied of him, an air to him that didn’t make him seem out of place next to the proper and perfect Beadle, with not even a hair out of place. “It’s him,” he whispers, and when Alastor makes a questioning noise he repeats, “it’s him! Adam!”

“Really?” Alastor peers through the window as well, sees Sera brushing off Adam’s shoulders and pointing to the sign for the barbershop. “My my, it would seem fortune is kind to you today, my dear!”

Adam doesn’t even look up as he approaches, and Lucifer realizes how easy it would be to simply make his death look like an accident- drop a heavy object from the window to crack over his head and send him tumbling back down the stairs, ‘accidentally’ fall into him as he descends and make sure his head lands with a satisfying crunch on the sidewalk. There were ways to end his life that wouldn’t require that Lucifer get his hands any bloodier than they already were- and Sera as well. He could simply poison them the way that Lilith had been poisoned, invite them for tea and slip arsenic into the glasses, watch them gasp for air and claw at their throats as they realized what he had done.

But no. For Adam, in particular, his death would be personal. Intentional. Despite his distaste for the way he had killed Pentious, he wanted to feel the life slip from his body the same way. Only then would he be vindicated, his wife and the life he could have had finally avenged. He wanted Adam’s blood to stain the floors of his barber shop until the building collapsed, a smear on New Orleans that could never be washed clean or sent away.

The knock at the door pulls him from his stupor, and Alastor’s not taken more than two steps before it flies open without waiting for a response. “Lucifer Morningstar?” He asks Alastor, with a glance up and down the man’s body, a poorly disguised look of distaste on his features as he looks around the building.

“Heavens, no! I own the building this fine establishment is in- and the bakery downstairs.” He waves a hand towards Lucifer, still standing stock still on the other side of the room by the window. “Here is our esteemed barber, Judge Cain- and a pleasure to meet you, might I add! If you have business to attend to, I’ll be off!” He repositions the basket on his hip and steps around Adam, shooting Lucifer a wink before he exits and closes the door behind him with a resounding click.

Adam narrows his eyes at Lucifer, watching him intently. “You look fucking familiar,” he says, and Lucifer’s hands clench at his sides in preparation for a fight. It was unlikely that Adam would have recognized him- the man hadn’t seen him clean shaven like this in well over twenty-five years- but he still should have accounted for the possibility. He wasn’t sure he was fast enough to get to his razors in time if Adam rushed him, but he would beat him to death with his bare hands if he had to-

He clears his throat, forcing the tension in his shoulders to relax and giving the man a smile when Adam’s eyes don’t widen in recognition after his statement. “I’m afraid I haven’t yet had the pleasure of meeting you, sir- but of course, the reputation of the esteemed Judge Cain does proceed you. I’m humbled that you’ve decided to grace my shop with your presence.” He was maybe laying it on a little thick, but if there was one thing he knew about Adam it was that flattery would get you everywhere with him, and was a surefire way to make sure his guard went down.

As expected, Adam puffs his chest up. “Well, Sera said you’re the best in town- and naturally I need the best, especially for an occasion like this. Let’s get a move on,” he says, impatient as he approaches the barber chair, “I’ve got important shit to do tonight.”

“Of course, your Excellency,” Lucifer says, letting his anger simmer below the surface while Adam settles into the chair, fiddling with the levers for his own comfort. “Might I ask what the occasion is, and what you’re looking to get done? A soothing massage, perhaps? A haircut?”

“A shave, obviously,” he says with a sneer, catching his own eye in the mirror across from him. “I need this stubble gone- got a lady I’m trying to impress, and I need it done fast.”

A woman- typical. That was the only time that Adam had ever come to Lucifer when he was Damien, was when he was trying to lure some unsuspecting lady to his bed. But he seemed agitated and tense in a way he had never been when trying to score a lay before, closer to the way he had been when he finally admitted his love for Lilith.

“Pretty shitty place you got here,” he adds as Lucifer comes to stand behind him, casting his eye around the room while the barber gathered his materials. “You know, I knew the barber that lived here before and he kept it a hell of a lot nicer. You could take some pointers.”

His back is to Adam when he stills, fingers tensing around the handle of his blade. “You knew him?”

“Yeah, he was a buddy of mine,” he says, and allows the barber to lower the chair, tip him back for a better position.”Before- well, you know, shit went down. Things happen.” He shrugs and closes his eyes with the new reclined position of the chair, relaxing with the prospect of his coming shave.

Shit went down. Things happen. What a way to describe ruining his best friend’s life, making his wife drink poison, feigning care for their daughter, likely lying to her all the while. The nonchalance that he spoke with filled Lucifer with a white hot rage, his fingernails digging into his palms. “You don’t say,” he says through gritted teeth, grabbing his soap bowl to begin to lather it. It wouldn’t do to strike too quickly- it would be better to lure him into a sense of calm, get him nice and relaxed so he couldn’t fight back when Lucifer dragged his blade across his traitorous throat. “I hope to soon have the shop looking a bit more welcoming. I have to say, I’m so pleased that you’ve come to see me this evening- I swear this will be the closest shave you’ve ever had.”

The last one, too.

Lucifer feels detached from his body, a wraith that shares his face when he turns back around and catches his reflection in the mirror above Adam.

He doesn’t blame him for not recognizing him without looking closer. The bags beneath his eyes are dark and heavy like they had never been when he was younger, happier. His hair has traces of gray that blend seamlessly into his blonde, and his shaven face held wrinkles that Adam had never seen before when they still knew one another. Adam had aged, too- the same streaks of gray to his dark locks, laugh lines etched into the skin of his mouth and his eyes.

Who would they be now, had Adam not betrayed him?

“It had better be,” Adam sneers, “or you’ll be out of a job as quick as you started. I need to look fucking good tonight- and hey, if you do manage to get it right I’ll hire you for the wedding!”

“Oh! A wedding, you say?” He would never make it to the altar, even without Lucifer’s interference. The only woman Adam had ever said he loved was six feet deep somewhere in this city- he had never wanted to settle down, content to sweet talk woman into bed with him with no promises or commitments when they were younger, and Lucifer truly couldn’t imagine the kind of woman that could possibly catch his old friend’s attention now. He starts brushing the lathered soap onto Adam’s cheek, the strands of the brush catching on his stubble and preventing a frictionless glide “Who’s the lucky lady?”

“My ward, Charlie. And let me tell you, she’s a looker; it’s no surprise, her mom was too! Missed my chance with her though- I never really expected to…”

Lucifer nearly drops the brush- he manages to catch himself as Adam keeps talking, spewing bullshit about how lucky she was to have caught his eye, how it was fate that she had grown up just as beautiful, that he was here on the shitty side of town now to make sure that she could see the best version of him when he informed her of the good news.

The idea of it was vile at best. He had known Charlie since infancy, had watched her grow up; to know that he looked at her now with lust filled eyes, saw her as some kind of replacement for the woman he had driven to suicide…

“The things we do,” Lucifer finds himself saying, “for pretty women, yes?”

“Hell yeah, man, you get it!” He grins, soap lathered across his face, waiting for Lucifer to carefully shave it away like the action could remove the sins he had committed. “I’ve put up with a lot of shit for a bit of tail over the years, you know- shit, maybe I shouldn’t talk about that, Sera would have my hide. Don’t go spreading any of this around, got me?”

“I wouldn’t dream of it, sir,” Lucifer tells him, bringing the blade down to rest almost lovingly against his stubbled cheek. “I know how to keep a secret.”

“Sweet! So I might be like, the Judge around here or whatever but I’m still a man, you know? So I’ll take a lady out once in a while and treat her all nice and shit, and…”

He tells his story while Lucifer slowly, slowly drags the blade down his skin, clearing the hair and soap in the razor’s path as he goes. His motions are methodical, precise as he turn’s Adam’s head this way and that, the man’s shoulders relaxing further and further as Lucifer goes, melting boneless into the chair as he’s serviced. Lucifer doesn’t even hear what he’s saying anymore, so focused on the reveal of shaven skin and picturing in his mind’s eyes what it would look like splattered with blood when he finally made the final swipe clean across Adam’s throat. This was his moment- this was what had made the last fifteen years of waiting, of hurting, worth it. Lilith would be avenged, and he would finally be satisfied, he thinks as he wipes away the last bit of shaving soap and positions his blade again, securely pressed to the jugular and ready to be pulled. It would all be for something now.

Adam laughs at something he said then, likely his own joke, his eyes opening to look into Lucifer’s like he was waiting for a chuckle, the delicate skin around his eyes crinkled with mirth. For a moment he looks so much like the man, the friend, that Lucifer had once known that his hand, traitorous and forgiving, hesitates in what should have been it’s final motion.

“She’s agreed, Mister Morningstar!”

The door to the barbershop flies open, a resounding crack echoing in the air as it slams with force into the wall- it startles Lucifer into a nick of the skin on Adam’s throat, not nearly as deep or wide as he needed it to be. The sharp pain makes Adam flinch as blood trickles like sweat down the column of his neck, a loud “what the fuck” escaping his lips that’s drowned out by Vaggie’s excited words as she closes the door behind her. Her dark hair is messy, strands escaping her usual tight braid, her lips swollen and her face flushed from activities that were too obvious even to Lucifer’s eyes.

“Charlie said she would go away with me; we’ll go North, far North, where that tyrannical Judge could never dream to follow us-”

“What the fuck is this?”

Vaggie finally notices him as he speaks, her mouth blissfully falling silent as she realizes who she had come in on. “Judge Cain,” she stammers, color draining from her face as he stands from the chair and throws the towel around his neck to the floor, stained with what little blood Lucifer had managed to draw with the slip of his razor. “I thought- Mister Lovett downstairs said-”

“You little bitch,” Adam snarls, stalking across the room and shoving hard at Vaggie’s shoulders; she stumbles backwards into the wall as he continues to advance. “I fucking told Sera we should have shipped you off the first fucking time we spotted you sniffing around my goddamn house, and now this?” When Vaggie steps away from the wall he shoves her again, her feet slipping out from under her as she slides down the wall with the force of it, the sound of her head smacking off the wall loud. “You’re fucking stupid if you think Charlie is going anywhere- I’ll lock that deceitful slut up myself before I let her go anywhere with you, and if you don’t get the fuck out of my town-”

Lucifer was across the room before he could think better of it, the insult to Charlie striking him like a hand across the face. He wasn’t even sure what he planned to do as he stepped between Adam and Vaggie, his razor still held half open in his hands.

Adam took the option away from him. “And you,” he growls at Lucifer, ripping the razor from his hands and hurling it across the room- it clatters noisily along the floor while Adam sticks a finger into Lucifer’s face. “Was this your plan all along? Distract me while this bitch runs off with my fucking girl?”

“Of course not,” he bites back, tamping down the rising panic in his chest, “how could I have known-”

Adam shoulders past him, his larger frame ensuring that Lucifer is almost sent tumbling to the floor as he strides to the door. “You’re both full of shit,” he sneers, ignoring Lucifer’s words as he yanks the door back open. “And if this,” he says with a distasteful look at Vaggie, “is the kind of company you keep you’d better hope you have some loyal fucking customers because I sure as Hell won’t be singing your praises.” And with that he slams the door closed behind him and descends.

“Mister Morningstar?” Vaggie asks, still sprawled on the floor of the parlor, and he doesn’t reach out a hand to help her.

Lucifer feels something in him breaking with every thundering step that shakes the building as Adam runs down them. All he can see is that split second of hesitation when Adam had laughed, the moment of recognition to the man he used to be, the men they both were. He would have gotten his determination back, he was sure of it, had Vaggie not come in-

“You’re scaring me, sir,” she finally says to break the silence, and Lucifer drops to his knees to pick up the razor from the floor before he looks at her again.

“Get out,” he says quietly, in an attempt to get her to leave before the storm inside of him boiled over, spilling his rage across the floor like blood.

“Sir, I-”

“OUT,” he screams, the force of it tearing forth from his throat as he brandishes the razor at her in renewed fury. “OUT, GET OUT!” He rages as he climbs from his knees, and Vaggie stumbles to her feet and flees, Alastor peeking into the room curiously moments after she had gone.

“What’s happened?” He asks pleasantly, noting the soiled towel on the floor and picking it up. Lucifer crosses the room and watches Adam and Vaggie leaving the shop in different directions from the window, as Alastor comes closer to stand next to him.

“I had him,” he says softly. “He was right here.”

“That sailor,” Alastor tuts placing a hand on his shoulder, “not even stopping into the bakery to see if you were busy. How sad, to have such good luck be thwarted-”

“No, damn it, I HAD HIM!” He smacks Alastor’s hands away from him and stalks away, his heart beating loud in his ears. “His throat was bare right in front of me, I was so close-” His hands tangle into his hair, pulling like the action could turn back time, take away that moment of hesitation when he should have slit Adam’s throat like he had been planning for months.

“Come now, Lucifer,” Alastor says, approaching him with his palms held aloft and a soft look in his eyes. “Everything will be alright, you’ll have your chance-”

“He’ll never come back!” He swipes his hand across his table of instruments, sending everything but the razor in his hand clattering to the floor with a crash. “It’s ruined, it’s all ruined-”

His hands run jagged through his hair, strands catching on the scrapes he’s accumulated through the day, from the fight with Pentious. The sting of it is grounding as he paces around the chair, kicking at the instruments that litter the floor. “Fuck, if Vaggie hadn’t shown when she did it would be done.” It’s unfair to blame the sailor- he knows it was him, the stay of his hand when Adam smiled, the curse of his human heart despite the vengeful monster he had sworn himself to be.

“Hmm, yes, the woman did have some abysmal timing, didn’t she?”

“You have no room to talk,” Lucifer spat at him, in lieu of getting more angry with himself. “You told me to wait. To bid my time, and I did, and now it’s all FUCKED.” He screams the last word, echoing off the empty walls of the parlor and making Alastor flinch.

He thinks of Charlie then, how she would feel seeing him like this, not recognizing him in his rage and his absence. Would she flinch, too? Frightened by the man that he had become in his quest to avenge the life she should have had, if Vaggie had brought her? Despair festers in his veins like a disease, knowing that there was no world in which she would love him again. His sweet daughter, estranged by time; killing Adam would never give them back the time they had missed together, even if he would feel sated knowing that such a blemish on the world was rightfully purged.

Perhaps that was what the world truly needed, he thinks deliriously, and it feels like he can feel his blood moving at a glacial pace through his body. Perhaps not just Adam, but all of them; every self righteous, hypocritical, selfish man that pulled the same stunts that the Judge did. Made moves for their own benefits, didn’t care who they were hurting in the process, just took what they wanted and moved on. Every person in the Church, in the Courts, that allowed Adam to stay where he was, in a position of power that he abused at every turn. Everything he’s feeling swirls inside of him, the frustration and rage and distant sadness, until it settles in the pit of his stomach with a startling clarity.

The whole city deserved to burn, and he was happy to light the match.

His manic laugh prompts Alastor to tip his head to one side, not any closer than he was before but no longer looking fearful. “Something funny?” He asks lightly, eyes tracking the movement of Lucifer’s arms as he lowers them, releasing his hair and letting them fall to his sides.

“New Orleans is a cesspool,” he says, and even he is surprised at the low tone, the darkness that seeps into his words as he speaks- but it makes Alastor’s expression light up with interest, finally coming closer, reaching a hand out to him that Lucifer takes, relishing in the gentle warmth of him when everything in himself feels cold. “And there’s no way for something to heal when the disease is still present.”

And despite the dark promise that taints in his tone, Alastor smiles. “It is indeed!” He says cheerfully, pulling Lucifer closer by his hand and tipping his face up with a delicate finger. “So what are you going to do about it, my dear?”

Act 1: Chapter 1 🥧 Chapter 2 🥧 Chapter 3 🥧 Chapter 4 🥧Chapter 5 🥧 Chapter 6 🥧Chapter 7 🥧 Chapter 8 🥧 Chapter 9 🥧 Chapter 10 🥧 Chapter 11

#rip sir pentious #hazbin hotel #alastor #hazbin alastor #lucifer hazbin #radioapple #human lucifer morningstar #human alastor #sweeney todd #ao3 writer #ao3 fanfic #ily frau <3 #God That's Good #GTG #slow slow slow burn #my stuff <3 #ily mink <3

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